Texas, Hartford and Graduation

Hello all,
In mid March, my fellow MFA students and I gathered in Ft Worth, TX. Local illustrators, many of them successful and highly respected in the illustration industry, came to Texas Christian University to present their work to us. Some of these talented artists included Jack Unruh, John Collier and Bart Forbes. Meeting these individuals in person and hearing them talk about their work was fascinating and inspirational. On the Texas trip, at the Ft Worth Stockyards, I remembered there was a corral that held a number of Longhorns. Seeing these large beasts up close impressed me very much, so I decided to illustrate one after the Texas trip:

In early June I finally finished my MFA thesis paper.  The paper is called Tradigital: Merging Old and New. In the paper, I described my process of using a combination of traditional art-making materials (i.e. linocut printmaking) and digital tools (Photoshop, Corel Painter) to produce a distinctive style of illustration.  For subject matter I chose to illustrate scenes based on the story of Swiss legend William Tell. In addition, I created six iconic images of food and beverage that were entirely produced digitally, but still maintain a lino-cut print look.

Here is an example from each series:

William Tell

Iconic Illustrations

I graduated on July 20th. What I have learned in The Hartford Art School’s MFA in Illustration program has been invaluable to me. Being surrounded by such talented artists, whether it be faculty, guest presenters or fellow students, has made me a better illustrator and educator.

SMF